


no gravity for us

by asterial



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Drabble, Falling In Love, M/M, Romance, light fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:35:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25624501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asterial/pseuds/asterial
Summary: "Do you know what happens before two stars collide?"
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	no gravity for us

**Author's Note:**

> the title is taken from [freckles and constellations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXnC04foULQ) by dodie

Somewhere in the back of Akaashi's mind, he knew he did not belong here.

There's a distinct feeling in his chest, one he cannot seem to shake away no matter his efforts of forgetting. Like a large, gaping wound in the center of his heart, he could not ignore the way it ached.

But perhaps ache is not the right word; it did not hurt, after all. 

It was a numbing feeling, like seeing his face on a black screen after watching a film; all of the sudden he was no longer in the same world as the characters in the story. All of the sudden he was nowhere to be found.

Some days it does not feel like this.

He's a normal boy, from a normal town, with normal friends and family. He's an only child and his parents aren't home enough for him to say they're whole, but he has his grandmother. And that much, Akaashi thinks, is enough for him. It's enough for him to push down the magnetic pull of whatever void is calling out to him. It's enough for him to tune out the voice he hears even when no one's around. 

But it's never enough for him to completely forget it.

It's days like these, when the sun is nowhere to be found and the sky's a cloudy haze, that the feeling increases tenfold. The rain, not so loud in his ears, is a soothing song he spends hours listening to. And it is at night when everything quiets down, and all he sees is the moon in the sky. 

It makes him wonder, shyly, hopefully, if there's a reason he feels this way. That this isn't just one of the universe's unanswerable questions. That perhaps whatever's calling out to him will one day show face and say, "Come home."

But until then, he will endure the dreamless nights and the constant white noise. It is all he can do, after all.

☆

It's hard to pinpoint exactly where everything started, but Bokuto guesses it's because heavenly bodies aren't bound by time and space. And to question the universe, in all its complexities and uncertainties, is something Bokuto has learned to be fruitless.

So he starts from when he can remember; when the universe showed him his light and spoke to him for the very first time. The birth of a solitary star.

"Your job is to stay aflame."

He didn't hear anything else other than that.

And so he stayed in place, right where the universe left him, in the middle of the dark expanse of space, lightyears away from everything else.

It is lonely being this way, so much so, the loneliness is almost no longer felt.

Until one day, he did not feel so lonely anymore.

"Find someone to share this space."

It was the second time the universe spoke to him. And it was the last thing he heard before he felt gravity's pull for the very first time, and he was no longer aflame.

☆

Akaashi met Bokuto under a starless sky.

It was a few weeks after the emergence of a boy that had the ability to use his hands to light up a dark night. As if his body were made of starlight, everyone stood in awe every night as the boy stood in the center of their town and glistened even when there was no moonlight.

They called him the star boy.

But Akaashi seeked to know his real name.

He did not watch the show of the glowing anomaly, he waited until it was over. Until there was no one else to see them speak with each other. And by that time it was nearing the last hour before dawn.

Before he can catch himself, he reaches a hand to grasp the boy's shoulder.

"Excuse me," Akaashi spoke, voice hesitant. 

The boy looked at him then, eyes wide and body on guard. Akaashi wondered what made the boy so wary.

"Are you—," he starts, "The star boy?"

He seemed to calm down after that, straightening his stance and fully facing Akaashi. Although he did step further away.

"They call me that, yes," he says. "Although I can't claim that's who I am."

He seemed so young, so shy and delicate. He did not seem from this world.

He seemed just like Akaashi.

"What's your name?" Akaashi asks, unable to look away.

The boy stood quiet, in his mind the question of why. Why was he asking? Why did he need to know?

And to that Akaashi would answer that he didn't have a reason.

"Koutarou," the boy answered.

"Koutarou," Akaashi repeated, "What a beautiful name."

He did not mean anything by the comment, it was simply something he wanted to say. But then the boy smiled, and all of the sudden Akaashi's heart felt the telltale signs of falling in love, he was just not aware of it yet.

It was the first time he finally felt an ache in his chest and no longer the mind-numbing feeling of empty. For the first time, his soul was set alight.

☆

"You're not from here, are you?"

Akaashi only gets the courage to ask him a few days after they met, when Bokuto is a lot more comfortable with him around and no longer on guard.

He's a lot more childish to what Akaashi thought him to be, looking at him now as he stands in the middle of a grassfield, hands reaching up to clasp the fireflies swarming around him. It always seemed like the light followed wherever Bokuto went.

He stops trying to catch the bugs when Akaashi speaks, eyes directing themselves towards the boy. His head tilts as his lips pursed.

"Of course I'm not," Bokuto answers. "What makes you ask?"

Akaashi scratches the back of his head. He asked because he felt it in his chest, regardless of the fact that the boy glowed like starlight. What he wanted to know was if there was any reason that he felt that way.

"I know you're different from everyone else, Koutarou," he says. "But it just feels like you're familiar."

It is an odd feeling to say these words out loud. He had never thought he'd say them to anyone in the first place.

"Familiar?" Bokuto repeats.

"Yes," Akaashi affirms, "Like I've known you long before I met you."

Bokuto laughs into the quiet space, "I'm not sure that's possible, Keiji."

Akaashi stills at that, eyes moving downward. "I suppose so."

He's not sure if he's ever seen Bokuto before, not even a glimpse of him. All he knows is that the boy made him feel at ease more than anyone could. Perhaps that counted as something.

"Keiji," Bokuto calls him, "Do you ever feel like you're not supposed to be here?"

It was as if the boy were reading Akaashi's mind when asked the question.

"All the time," he answers all too honestly. 

"... Come here for a second."

Akaashi follows his orders, moving forward so that he could be right in front of the boy.

He sees the fireflies swarming around Bokuto again, seemingly enamored by the boy that they could no longer fly away. He has his hands clasped together, and after a few seconds he opens them to reveal a tiny flame, flickering in between his palms.

"Do you trust me?" he asks, eyes nowhere else but against Akaashi's own.

By the look on Bokuto's face it seemed like he had no choice.

"Yes," he says.

Bokuto places the tiny flame onto only one of his hands and uses the other to grab Akaashi's. Gently, he places the hand atop the flame.

"How—," is the only thing Akaashi manages to get out, mind completely at a loss for words.

He can feel the flame against his skin, feel its heat tickle the inside of his palm, but for some reason he is not hurting. For some reason, he doesn't burn.

"They told me my job was to stay aflame," Bokuto says. "And it wasn't until a few weeks ago that they told me to do something else."

Akaashi has no idea who Bokuto is talking about nor did he know what he meant. But Akaashi pays no attention to the questions in his mind, all his thoughts are directed to the boy whose flame did not burn him.

"What was it?" Akaashi asks.

"They told me to find someone," he confesses. 

Bokuto presses their hands together so that their fingers are fully intertwined, watching as the flame engulfs their hands entirely. Still, Akaashi does not pull away.

"Tell me, Keiji," Bokuto says. "Is it wrong to hope you're the one I'm looking for?"

Akaashi does not know the answer to Bokuto's question. But there must be a reason that Akaashi has felt out of place his entire life, and that suddenly Bokuto came looking for someone that sounded a lot like him

☆

Akaashi never sees Bokuto in daylight.

As if he truly were a star, he only ever showed himself during nighttime. Most days, Akaashi spent the hours waiting for the last streaks of sunlight to disappear and longing to see the star boy again.

His grandmother seems to notice this, calling him out on his restlessness one time.

"You look like you're about to up and leave somewhere, Keiji," his grandmother says. "You're not planning on going without saying goodbye, are you?"

Akaashi hopes never to bother his grandmother of anything but he's afraid he can't tell her he wouldn't do exactly what she said.

"I hope you won't be too mad at me if I ever do," he says instead, there was no room for empty promises.

His grandmother shakes her head at that. "I could never be mad at you."

He hopes she's telling the truth.

These days it feels like daytime has become longer, and that his time with Bokuto has become shorter. So much so, it's almost as if he were hyperaware of each second passing whenever he was with the boy.

"Why won't you ever come to me during the day?" Akaashi asks.

Bokuto looked at him then, eyes soft, stare fond. As if he were thinking about a distant memory. Akaashi could only imagine what.

"The day sky is not mine to take," Bokuto says simply. "Although I do admit, I am quite jealous of the sun."

Akaashi's sure he's not supposed to understand what he means when he says that. But for some reason, he feels like he does.

"You don't have to be," Akaashi says, "I like the night better."

That seems to be the right thing to say, as Bokuto wraps his arms around Akaashi to secure him in a tight embrace. It feels a lot like home inside his arms.

Akaashi thinks he would choose to lose the sun, if it meant being able to be with Bokuto the entire day.

☆

"Do you know what happens before two stars collide?"

It's Bokuto that speaks, quietly into the night. They're in the middle of the grassfield again, the fireflies surrounding them, the moonlight favouring them. They're lying down and staring at the starless sky as it stares right back at them.

Akaashi turns to Bokuto then, finding that it was no matter that the night had no stars. Bokuto was far more radiant than any night sky.

"They start to spiral around each other, as if they were in the same orbit," he says. "Like shy hands unable to meet until they finally do."

Bokuto takes Akaashi's hand then, filling in the spaces in between his fingers. 

"They're at their brightest there, just before the collision; the moment they share each other's light. And from here, we can no longer tell them apart."

Akaashi lets go of his hand, sitting up as a star finally, finally appears in the blank canvas of the sky.

"Isn't it funny, Keiji?" he asks, turning back to look at Akaashi below. "That even when two stars appear to be so close they are actually lightyears away from each other."

Akaashi doesn't respond to Bokuto's question. He has no words that could possibly express what he felt right now. Now, as he looks up at Bokuto with a single star behind him against an otherwise dark sky.

Instead, he raises himself and he reaches his hands to cup Bokuto's face, slowly closing the distance in between them, warm and gentle.

He no longer feels like he doesn't belong, and he doesn't see the way the stars start to show themselves one by one, far too distracted in the star boy’s kiss.

☆

It doesn't feel too lonely up here anymore, Bokuto thinks. Not when there's this pull. Not when there's another light, not too far away from him, inching closer and closer as they orbit together. 

Not when he found someone to share this space.

"Your job is to stay together."

This time, the universe no longer needed to tell him what to do. Instead, he just did it.

He wonders how bright they look from the grassfield.

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this because i think binary stars systems are adorable
> 
> talk to me on [twt](https://twitter.com/maqickal)


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